


Substitution Fallacy

by elegantanagram (Lir)



Series: HSWC 2014 Bonus Round Fills [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Ambiguous Age, Emotional Baggage, M/M, POV Third Person, Sex Robots, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 08:01:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1680806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/elegantanagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"It doesn't matter one goddamn whit that Dave would go gray and queasy if he caught even a microsecond's eyeful of what Dirk has made. He's flayed himself bare for his brother already, with an honesty that doesn't come easy, that is far from his native tongue. Dave knows what he wants and pretends otherwise, on all instances he's able to perform the farce. That's fine, that's chill, that's what-the-fuck-ever. Dirk greedily clutches his brother's image in replacement, drives himself ever-closer to that precarious edge."</i>
</p><p>In which Dave won't respond the way Dirk wants to his genuinely inappropriate as hell interest in his brother, and which Dirk responds to this by building a Davebot to fulfill the role he wants from Dave in Dave's stead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Substitution Fallacy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glowcloudy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glowcloudy/gifts).



> Written for the first bonus round of the 2014 [Homestuck Shipping World Cup.](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/) The prompt was "Do you remember when Dirk built the alpha!Davebot?"
> 
> I've wanted to write a fic where Dirk builds a robotic surrogate for Dave for some time now, and this prompt just gave me the push and the green light. This is not a happy story. This is a story about unrequited, obsessive longing, and a story about Dirk building a robot to take the place he thinks Dave should occupy in his life, _while Dave is still there._

-

He doesn't linger on the AI. 

Programming a brain for his latest creation is low on the priority totem pole for Dirk. He's not aiming for state-of-the-art problem solving. He's making a machine with a singular, specific purpose, and it only needs to be smart enough to deliver on the precious few bullet points enumerated beneath that goal. Besides, it's not as if the original he's modeling from is nearly intelligent enough to be worth more sophistication than Dirk is choosing to deliver. 

That's unfair, he knows it's unfair, but objectively knowing isn't the same as caring. 

What Dirk pours his time and sweat and distilled, fermented love into is the construction of the chassis. The mind may be simple, but the body is a masterpiece. It needs to be light, maneuverable, and must not be dense. This is no strifebot meant to stand and take a hit when Dirk needs to bleed off the occasional restless energy that consumes him. It's a sleek, handsome piece of work, made of the absolute lightest alloy money can buy. He's been at this a while now; he has the funds to blow, and any cost within his means is not asking too much.

In skeleton form, the robot is creepy. There are no two ways about it. It's a sharp dive into the bleakest depths of the uncanny valley, with gaping pits for eyes and a broad, flat mouth through which dull metal interior workings are easily visible. It's ugly, because it doesn't actually need to execute any complex movements, though the hands are finer than the work of any jeweler Dirk has cared to meet. Each miniscule articulation has been fitted together with the utmost care, the metal bones thin but strong. Sometimes, when Dirk sleeps in fitful stretches between working, he imagines them closing around the tunnel of his throat, so that he wakes up gasping. 

He never means to dream of strangulation, and he tells himself, viciously, that his brother is doing no such thing. Dave simply does not understand, and if nothing in Dirk's power is enough to sway the esteemed director's lofty view, he'll turn to other means. Never let it be said that Dirk Strider is not resourceful. 

When it's completed, after a solid week of sleepless nights and many more days of work before them, the robot is still a bit uncanny. It's too perfect, smooth skin tinted a hue just a hair too vivid to be believed, synthetic hair giving little curls at the temples that Dave's never retains. They always droop until they lie flat, wilted by Dave's sweat and his weariness, falling in parallel to the pronounced lines forming along the sides of Dave's mouth. The fountain of youth has run out – Dirk's handsome bro is starting to show his age, and it takes more strength than he cares to summon not to feel vindictive about it. 

The Davebot is just a smidge younger, just a breath fresher, pristine and perfect. He's handsome as a heartache and muscled just enough to be an envy, his artificial dermis coating synthetic musculature Dirk painstakingly sculpted by hand. The delicate hydraulics and micro-circuitry were simple by compare – getting the shape of a bicep and the breadth of a calf just right is what required true finesse. When Dirk boots him up, his eyes are gentle, because Dirk spent an entire day obsessing over getting their quality just exactly right.

Eyes are the windows to the soul, they say, and his robot might be soulless, but god forbid he not paint a pretty picture of the real thing. 

Dirk boots him up, and Davebot smiles at him, that subtle curve of lips that's more about the corners of the mouth than the lips themselves. (He might not have made the robot smart, but he sure as hell made sure every pre-programmed routine was executed perfectly.) Dirk grins back, mouth tugging tight in an expression that would have been charming, if it weren't so quietly desperate, and leans himself against Davebot's chest. 

"I'm gonna kiss you," he says, too eager to properly pull off flippant, his hands already crawling up from pecs to neck to the strong lines of Dave's jaw on either side of his-- on either side of Davebot's face. He whispers out, like a prayer, "I love you, bro." 

Davebot doesn't say anything, because he's fundamentally an idiot and he wasn't programmed to. Dirk kisses him full on his artificial mouth, crushes their lips together too hard and moans low in his throat at even that bare level of contact. He scrabbles at the sides of Davebot's neck with his fingers – not like he can actually hurt it, though he could tear the epidermis – and whines when for once, for goddamn fucking once, he's kissed back, lips moving sure and certain and like he's _wanted._ He shoves his tongue in his robot's mouth so he doesn't make another undignified sound. 

He walks Davebot backward to the bed, kissing him desperately every step of the way but not hesitating a second in pushing him down to the mattress, not even though it drags their mouths apart. He's not concerned about his creation suffering a fall because this is just what it's made for – Davebot catches himself, and scoots just so on the bed so he's in position. Dirk didn't bother dressing him up, though he curses momentarily that he's still half in his clothes, god, he's impatient. 

He ducks down for another hard kiss, hands at his waistband shoving his underwear down over his ass. They catch around the knees, but he squirms over Davebot with the smooth roll of a fish executing a flop off the dock, forcing his boxers to ankle-level where he can kick them off. He works half-naked, half the time, it being cleaner when he's not doing anything like welding where he needs protective gear. Davebot's skin has just the right amount of give, when Dirk stretches across it, makes him want to duck his head and bite into Dave's shoulder, press him little soothing kisses to the spot and map him out from collarbone to hip with his mouth. 

He wants to cover Dave in little lovebite-bruises, wants to whisper _I love you, I love you_ until Dave hears the _I need you_ underneath, until Dave parses apart the desperate fixation and knows that he is the only person in the world Dirk is still able to trust, even if his mouth puckers in when he hears it. Dirk has learned about hard knocks, Dave should be fucking proud of him. He's weathered some goddamn fucking shit and the least his brother can do for him is this. 

But Dave won't, and this isn't Dave, and Davebot's skin isn't designed to bruise. Dirk could have managed that, probably, in a few select places. It wasn't important. He pushes himself up on his elbows and stares besottedly down at his robot for a full minute, admiring how well he shaped the face, how convincingly he tooled the expression. He looks just like Dave, charming but slightly bemused, waiting for Dirk to get on with it. 

Dirk gets on with it. 

He squirms down to the foot of the bed, folding himself up with bent knees and pointed-out elbows, leaning over Davebot's crotch to admire his cock instead. That took longer than the eyes, getting it to the exact dimensions Dirk imagines. He curls his fingers fondly around the facsimile of his brother's dick, strokes his thumb lightly up the underside of the shaft. It's soft and cuddly in his hand for but a moment – he built a motion sensor into it. Gone are the days of having to jerk a guy up to hardness, not when you have a robot. Now it takes but one coaxing stroke in the precise right place, and Davebot is swelling to admirable hardness. 

Dirk swallows hard, gropes for the lube on his bedside table. This part is familiar – he's stuck his fingers up himself countless times, repeated the exploration ad nauseum until he no longer feels full from his hand alone, he bets he could work his whole fist up into his own asshole and it'd still be a yawn, all the more because he doesn't have the goddamn patience for it. His slick fingers work fast and clumsy, made sloppy from nerves and excitement, stretching him open just enough to stick something else inside instead. 

He slicks his hand over Davebot's cock, a quick stroke that leaves it slippery and glistening with lube, and leans back. His hand goes between his legs to grasp Davebot's dick and line him up, and as he sinks down he lets out a moan through his nose that is sheer, exultant victory. He falls on his brother's sword to the hilt and it is the best goddamn feeling in the world. 

Davebot does none of it for him. Dirk rides him, hard motions of his own hips against a set that remain stationary, curling his arms tight around Davebot's shoulders to hang on once he really gets going. He grips Davebot's bicep with one hand and buries his face in his robot's soft neck, keeps himself quiet and muffled as he fucks himself on that nice cock. 

The voice that wants to whisper what a sick, nasty fuck he is has long since gone dead and silent, he's scoured himself clean of any shame too many months ago.

It doesn't matter one goddamn whit that Dave would go gray and queasy if he caught even a microsecond's eyeful of what Dirk has made. He's flayed himself bare for his brother already, with an honesty that doesn't come easy, that is far from his native tongue. Dave knows what he wants and pretends otherwise, on all instances he's able to perform the farce. That's fine, that's chill, that's what-the-fuck-ever. Dirk greedily clutches his brother's image in replacement, drives himself ever-closer to that precarious edge. 

The absolute hardest part of designing and programming Davebot, from the beginning, had been designing a routine of checks so Davebot could judge when Dirk is close. This is the trial run of that system, the maiden fucking voyage (ha!), and as Dirk shudders and crosses that invisible baseline, he feels Dave's strong hands move against his back. 

"I'm so proud of you," his robot tells him, in a voice perfectly synthesized from a thousand clips, from a hundred thousand words that don't matter until it rang true to tell Dirk the ones that do, "I love you, Dirk." 

It's embarrassing how fast he jizzes himself. 

He gives one final slide down, just impaling himself one last time before sagging, spent, against Davebot's chest with the robot's arms wrapped securely around him. 

"Love you too, man," he says, careless, pushing gently against the machine's shoulder. 

Davebot does just as he's been programmed, helping Dirk to slide off him and lie flat on the bed, uncaring of the mess because he's one fanciful imaginative leap from lying on his brother's chest while he's sweaty and sticky with his own juices and so goddamn fucking satisfied. Idly, he reaches out for Davebot's cock, strokes reversewise down its shaft so it can go back to sleep. Robots don't actually need to get off. 

"Do you think I'm gonna grow up okay?" he asks, so soft, like the words can't quite be allowed to intrude in on the descending quiet. 

"You're gonna be great," Dave's voice tells him. "Maybe one day you'll be more famous than me." 

He responds to prompting just as he should. Tells Dirk what he wants to hear, what never rings true from Dave's lips so that Dirk becomes sure Dave must have never said it. His creation is a rousing success.

"Tell me that thing again," Dirk prompts, one more time. He's so exhausted from beating himself up building this overwrought machine, he thinks in a minute perhaps he'll just take a nap, safe against Dave's side. 

"I'm really fuckin' proud of you." 

"Yeah," Dirk murmurs. "Me too. Night, bro." 

-

-


End file.
